EXTEND HELP, TAKE RESPONSIBILITY: AN INITIATIVE FOR STRAY ANIMALS

 EXTEND HELP, TAKE RESPONSIBILITY: AN INITIATIVE FOR STRAY ANIMALS

Animals are extremely affectionate. Giving a little love or small acts of kindness towards stray animals can give them better life. But many of us do not understand their state and treat them badly. Animals are known to recognize love in any form. And so the good you do to a stray animal will never go waste. Survival of stray animal is very difficult as they have to face harsh conditions to live. Every animal deserves to have a good life. Some of them need special care and treatments to pull through.

Very often, you find yourself stepping out of your home and being surrounded by stray animals. Some of them look quite healthy while the others look hurt, famished, or weak. Some of them even display signs of diseases. You don’t need to be an animal lover to feel compassion towards them. Compassion is an innate human tendency, and in the case of animals, we tend to reserve a softer spot in our hearts. Despite this, there has been a longstanding misconception about stray animals – that they are aggressive and less fun to have around. The truth is, most of these animals’ desire for love, attention and care. They are just unfortunate to undergo stressful situations like abandonment and ill-treatment.

Just because these animals have nowhere to go, it doesn’t mean they are worthless and it does not give the right to people to mistreat them. I have seen many videos in which people are putting fire on stray dogs or tying crackers to cattle’s tails. It is important to know that cruelty to strays is an act that can land you into a jail for upto five years. Some laws against cruelty maintain that injuring, maiming or killing any homeless animal is illegal under the Indian Penal Code. 

We have also witnessed people who came forward to help these innocent souls. Not only organisations but people at personal level also try to become a helping hand and support these stray animals by taking care of them. Some people offer food, shelter and even provide medical facilities to these stray animals. There are three incidences that we would like to share which indicates being a helping hand to these animals.

First incidence is about a black Labrador dog. My father and I (Megha) found an old female black Labrador near my house that was lost, seemed troubled and was unaware of her location. We tried searching for her owner in the nearby area but returned empty-handed. We gradually managed to take her inside our house and called the vet. He informed that she is having a tumor and probably that is the reason somebody abandoned her. Since I already have 2 pet dogs, we decided to get her treated and to settle her in a shelter home. She was very affectionate, well-mannered and adorable. We called PFA, and got her chemotherapy done. She stayed with us for a week and we managed to find a shelter home that takes care of stray animals and homeless children and elders. That dog recovered and used to play with the kids in the shelter home. So we managed to save a life.

The second incidence is about a female dog in Devanshi’s vicinity whose mother and 2 siblings died when the dog was small. Her family took care of the dog for years. But few months ago she died leaving behind her 3 puppies which were hardly 2 months old. Now Devanshi and her family is fostering these puppies and taking proper care of them.

The third incidence is about a group of students from my city Agra who have extended their help towards stray animals. They have made a group known as Prarambh Welfare Society which is a group of management students. They started with blood donation camps and saving human lives but they also realised that even animals need their help. So they have started collecting funds from people and help these stray animals. They look for wounded animals and get them treated. They also prepare food, collectively for people in their society and stray animals and try to distribute it among monkeys, cows and dogs thereby helping them. 

There are ways we can all be kind to the beautiful creatures sharing our world.

1.     Foster a stray animal.

2.    Set up donation camps to raise money for animals.

3.     Volunteer at any local animal shelter.

4.     Educate kids to be kind to animals.

5.     If you see animal in need, call animal care helpline.

6.     Adopt a pet from a shelter.

7.     Keep water bowls, left-over food and vegetable wastes outside your house.

8.     Rescue a lost or abandoned animal.

So, if such initiatives are taken by people, obviously the condition of these stray animals would be much better off.

Conclusion

Earth was not meant only for humans to inhabit; these animals are ignored but they are important part of our ecosystem too!” If you’re one of those who cannot be compassionate towards strays and cannot bear having them around, the least you could do is simply show some humanity towards them and not harm them by beating them up and forcing them to find shelter elsewhere in such scorching heat or freezing cold or rains. It is through this blog that we would like to request all others that a small contribution towards these animals, small act of kindness, love and affection can give them a better life. So we would request others to become a helping hand to at-least one stray animal and make their life better as one act of help can bring change in life of some innocent.

Blog by        :- Megha Bhatnagar 

Department :- AIB

University    :- Amity University Rajasthan